999 Games eyes unprecedented clean sweep of categories in Dutch game of the year awards
Dutch board game publisher 999 Games is in with a chance of a never-before-seen success in all three categories at this year’s Nederlandse Spellenprijs – the Dutch game of the year awards.
More than 100 board games were considered for this year’s awards, which were eligible for games published in the Dutch language for the first time in the 12 months to June 30, 2024.
No publisher has scored a clean sweep of the awards since the contest went from a single category to being split into ‘family’ and ‘expert’ sections in 2013. The intermediate ‘connoisseur’ award was added to the contest in 2020.
This year’s Spiel des Jahres winner Sky Team, which is published by 999 in the Netherlands, is up for the family game award, as are Trekking Through History from White Goblin Games and Sea, Salt and Paper from Gam’inBIZ.
999 Games’ Dutch language version of The White Castle is nominated for the connoisseurs’ game prize, alongside Forest Shuffle from Asmodee and Cat in the Box from Geronimo Games.
The expert game award will come down to 999 Games’ Spirit Island, Rats of Wistar from DSV Games or Sabika from Keep Exploring Games.
999 Games triumphed in the inaugural Nederlandse Spellenprijs in 2001 with Bruno Faidutti’s Machiavelli, and ended a dry spell following that by winning the award four years in a row between 2009 and 2012.
The company has won the connoisseur category twice out of its four contests so far, with The Crew in its inaugural year and Libertalia in 2022.
White Goblin Games has triumphed in the expert games category for six years out of the last seven, but was pipped to the 2023 gong by Sleeping Gods from Keep Exploring Games.
The company won two out of the three categories in 2022, with Cascadia in the family award and Ark Nova in the expert game section.
Nederlandse Spellenprijs’ jury is composed of Netherlands-based board game writer, video makers, reviewers, game store and cafe owners and board game association organisers.
The winners are expected to be announced in October.
